Refrigerating-car.



No. 855,768. PATBNTED JUNE 4; 190 7. r. J. annoy.

RBFRIGERATING CAR. APILIOATION FILED JUNE 19 1903 2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

UNrr STATES ATENT OFFICE.-

FRANK J. GILROY, or BUFFALO, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-FOURTH TO ALFRED H. SMITH, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., ONE-FOURTH TO JAMES H. SOUTHARD, OE TOLEDO, OHIO, ONE- IGHTE O JOSEPH F. DESMOND, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.,AND ONE-EIGHTH TO WALLAOE GREENE, OF WASH- INGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

' REFRlGERATlNG-CAR- Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed June 19, 1903. Serial No. 162,237.-

No. 855,768. l atented. June 4, 1907.

With an inner lining B of galvanized iron or the like, whereby the walls are made nearly impervious to air and water and reasonably effective non-conductors of heat. Near each end of the car is placed a transverse partition C and in each end chamber thus formed are placed two slightly separated ice receptacles which are not entirely closed below and which nearly fill the chamberv yet leave a narrow space on all vertical sides.

Across the upper part of each ice chamber extends a pipe or header E from which extend lateral pipes E and these pass back and forth in a vertical plane and near the bottom of the chamber connect with a similar transverse pipe E from which conduits E open into the space E at the bottom of the chamber, below the ice receptacles.

Below the body of the car is mounted an air compressing and cooling device F driven by an eccentric F on the car axle F This device draws air, throu h a pipe G from the up er central portion the car, compresses it s ightly and discharges it through a ipe H into a reservoir 1 in the upper part of t e car, and from this reservoir it passes through To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRANK J. GILROY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Buffalo, in the county of Erieand State of New 5 York, have invented new and useful Improvements in Refrigerating-Cars, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to car refrigerating devices and its general object is to provide for. maintaining erishable goods at a lowtemperature, wit out attention, throughout the time required for transporting them be tween widely separated points such for example as Chicago and New York, and to do this without expensive apparatus and without giving up to the special devices employed any unusual amount of space or expending any unusual sum in operating the apparatus.

With these objects in view, a small compartment at each end of the car is supplied with ice and the air of the car is forced to circulate continually through'these chambers, the circulation being secured by arranging without and below the car an air compressing 2 5 and cooling device which withdraws air from the top of the car, compresses it slightly and returns it to the car. The slight compression causes the air to impart heat to the device, and the external air, through which the de- 0 vice moves, slowly removes this heat, leaving,

in moderate weather, very little to be done by the ice in the compartments, and hence making a single charge ofice suflicient for thousands of miles of travel.

- It often happens that cars are unavoidably detained at points where trains are re-formed, and as ice will rapidly melt when the car is not in motion, I provide means whereby this -melting may be prevented but such devices 40 are without novelty herein claimed In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a vertical longitudinal section of a car provided with my devices. Fig. 2 is a section on the line 22, Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a vertical section of the car, the plane of'section being near and at the right of a certain compressing and cooling device shown at F, Fig. 1'.

In these figures, A represents the.body of a refrigerating car of ordinary general construction but lined with sheets of thick socalled asbestos packing, B, and provided eadersit passes through the several pipes E into the space E and then rise through the spaces about the ice receptacles and flows out into the body of the car through narrow horizontal openings or doors K and falls and spreads out to replace the slightly warmer air which is being constantly withdrawn by the device.

Suitable openings L are rovided in the top of the car through which roken ice maybe placed in the ice receptacles, and these openlngs are provided with closures M Of-the usual character. The water accumulating in the t ough trapped ducts at O.

pipes of this apparatus with those of a refrigerating plant, for cooling the car initially or at times when it may be delayed in train yards, and hence I provide a valved branch pipe at G and a second valved Opening at I through which air may be permitted to en- .ter or leave the'car; When the car is to be putintouse, it is preferably first cooled in pipes J, J, to the headers E. From the s aces E is discharged in the usual manner It is sometimes desirable to connect the ordinary ways and broken ice is then placed in the ice receptacles D. Whenever the car is running, the air compressing and cooling device "withdraws asmall quantity of air from the car at very short intervals and forces a like amount into the reservoir I. From the reservoir, which is not indispensable, the air passes through the pipes in the ice receptacles to the spaces E and thence by the openings K to the body of the car. In thus producing a circulation of the air the air compressing and cooling device momentarily compresses each charge of air and in consequence the air imparts heat to the compressing devices raising them to a temperature slightly above that of the surroundingv atmos here throu h which they are rushing with t e s eed of t e car. The net result is a constant s ight loss of heat from the air in the car, so that the car is kept at a very low temperature with little or no loss of heat in the ice compartments and consequently with little or no consumption of ice, so long as the train is kept in motion. Should the train be delayed, however, the ice prevents any in jurious rise in temperature for any reasonable time, or until other measures can be employed.

It is to be observed that since the pipes leading from the compressor through the ice receptacles are usual y slightly colder than the air in the body of the car, there is a slight condensation of moisture in the ice compartments and thereby the contents of the car will never sweat. Yet since the difference in temperature is only trifling and the warmer air is only slightly above freezing at any time there is very little condensation and meat, for example, carried in the car suffers no material loss in weight.

The compressor is in practice very small indeed and the power used in operating it is hardly appreciable, for when heat is abs-tracted every second, for example, the amount to be thus removed is almost infinitesimal.

It is obvious that a plunger compressor is merely a good means rather than an essential means for compressing and circulating the air, and that it may be replaced by a fan or any other suitable means. pensable that the air be taken through the masses of ice in pi es and be thus kept from direct contact wit the ice, but I prefer this construction for several reasons, among which is the fact that the lower portions of the ice receptacles often become so cold that water within freezes so that they contain a solid mass of ice. the apparatus chosen for illustration may be varied without passing the limits of my invention, I desire, therefore, to claim the invention broadl and not to be limited to the particular devices shown and described in detail.

What I claim is: I

The combination with a car having nonconducting walls and adapted for approximately complete'exclusion of air, of an air compressing and cooling device outside the car, exposed to the sweep of air through which the moving car may pass, and arranged to take its full supply of air from the interior of the car, compress it, and restore it to the body of uncompressed air in the car; substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

FRANK J. GILROY.

Witnesses:

EDWARD FITZGERALD, P. J. CURRAN.

Nor is it i-ndis- In other respects, also, 

